Friday, November 13, 2009

I ordered this hat for Drew and Cam's been wearing around the house all day long. He looked so cute, so of course I had to get some pictures of him. I just love how his eyes are so penetrating. It was the last picture by the way. I got some other cute ones...but this one was the best. It's just shows that being patient is an important part of photography ;)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

What is it about boys that they feel the need to shoot stuff, slice and dice, and generally cause mass destruction? My mom gave me the Toys R' Us big toy magazine a couple of days ago and I told Drew we could go through it and he could circle what he would like for Christmas. Well, he wants a gun, a sword, a Ultimate Fighting set with fighting figurines. To name a few... So, me being the mom wondering why boys are like this asked Drew, "bud, what is it that you like about guns and swords?" He said, "Because swords make blood come out and guns blow stuff up." Ok, maybe I'm just being too dramatic but WWHAAATTTT?!??!!!!!!!!!!!! We don't watch violent stuff at our house. They watch disney movies, Thomas the Train and Bob the builder and Living Scriptures. Where did I go wrong? So, I told Drew that I don't know if it's a good idea to have guns and swords in the house if that's what he likes about them. I told him even pretending to hurt or kill somebody is not a good idea. I know he's only 5, and he's a boy. I certainly don't want him playing with barbies or dolls or something, but COME ON! Should I get him the gun, figuring that it's just going to happen someday anyway? Or should I find alternate ways for him to have fun. I'm for plan "B" but was hoping any other ideas that find their way into my comments either help me cement my decision or just tell me to calm down and stop being so dramatic...Mom's of boys.... HELP!!!!!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween this year was great. We made pumpkins a few days before-I wish we would have been more on the ball with that one. We watched the NBC Monsters and Aliens Halloween special, the boys watched about 5 times.

I Drew a face on Cam's pumpkin and then gave him some markers and told him to have at it. He had a great time coloring his own pumpkins. The only downside was his self-appointed ownership of ALL the pumpkins. At least 5 times a day I would find him outside rearranging the pumpkins to how he thought they should be.

The pumpkins we made:

I actually took this one for an assignment for a photography group that I'm a part of. The assignment was fear. I made this photo by zooming my lense in and out during a long exposure-1.5 seconds I think. Kinda cool huh.

This year, we decided to pass out candy. The first time in our entire marriage. In the past we've gone to both of our family's houses and neighborhoods. We really wanted to stay home and enjoy this neighborhood type of holiday. We're glad we did, it was fun walking around with our neighbors and the kids LOVED running from one doorstep to another with their friends. We have an awesome ward and neighborhood-I'm so glad to be here.

My cute little Captain Jack Sparrow (Drew still can't say that name, and I WISH that I could write down what he's saying, but I have no idea what he's saying) and Buzz Lightyear..."To Infinity and Beyond!!!

The serious shot, before taking off ;)

There's my boy! It's taken 2 years 22 months 19 days and 10 hours for this kid to actually smile for the camera. Sheesh dude!!

I love this shot of Cam climbing up to get his loot :)

And another. He would RUN from house to house, and would ask for more than one piece of candy. It worked, because he came home with almost twice as much candy as drew...what a little stinker.

Can I just say how much I love this picture. I'm tempted to blow it up and hang it in my house...I love the intensity in his eyes and his facial expression. I asked Drew at some point during the summer what he wanted to be for Halloween. Pirate-he didn't even hesitate! Here he is and loving it!!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

I made some more pages with some new kits from Gina Marie Huff at WW. I'm on her creative team and get to use all of her amazing products on my pages. I made these two pages one from a Halloween kit (All Hallows Eve) and one from a sweet little boy kit (Such a Boy). I had to post these so that you all could see mine and TJ's stinkin' AWESOME costumes. Our cool next door neighbors had a party and this is what we came up with. It was so funny doing his make-up and dressing him up. The best part was that he wore a low cut dress so that his chest hair would poke out, AND he didn't shave either!! It was so funny, needless to say he had all kinds of respect for women afterward for putting make-up on every day, for having to wear a bra and do our hair.

I found these CUTE pictures of TJ and Drew that I took back in July. I'd forgotten about them!! They're so cute, I'm glad I was able to find them and scrap them :_

Friday, October 16, 2009

Drew learned a new song at school this week. I love that he loves to sing!! He's been singing it all week and shows anybody who will watch and listen to him. I get a huge kick out of it :) My favorite part is how he enunciates "little." And I love how he has no inhibitions in front of the camera-I mentioned that I would like to record his song today, and he begged me to do it ALL day. Great singing buddy!

*p.s. I take all my videos with my still camera and I took this one vertically, so sorry about the difficulty in viewing! :)

Saturday, October 10, 2009

I decided to take a little time for myself this weekend. I left Thursday night and stayed in a hotel downtown for two nights. It was so nice, to be able to relax, sleep in, read, take photos and also to do some digi-scrapping. Life has been so crazy these past couple of months, and the summer was really busy too. I haven't scrapped since April, and I was really missing it. It felt SO good, to be able to do this fun hobby again. Here are the pages I made...

p.s. Thanks T.J. for letting me go do this, I'm so thankful! I love you sweetie!!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

I have been enjoying my little boy so much lately. I am really loving his age right now, Kindergarten, his curiosity, cello lessons, reading the Magic Treehouse series together. Because of cello and homework...and all the reading ;) we've had a lot of time together. We've always been close, but I feel that we're so much closer now. I just love this stage... I love his involvement. I just signed him up for Basketball! And he is so sweet. Sure, he has his sassy moments. But, he always want to hug or cuddle. He loves to come up to me and hold my hand, or he just likes to be with me for whatever I'm doing. Last week, while Cam was napping we got out Drew's sand art kit. He had so much fun creating-something he usually doesn't like to do.

Yesterday, I bribed him (which usually doesn't take much, he'll always cooperate when I get my camera out!) with candy corn pumpkins and got my favorite photo EVER. of Drew. I love how he'll pose every time.

Today, Drew was supposed to come straight home for singing class. He came flying around the corner on his scooter and right when he got to the garage, I said "Hey buddy, how was schoo-" But before, I could answer, he started bawling. I started asking if he was okay, thinking he'd fallen down, or gotten in a fight or had gotten bullied or something. No, he started saying how bad his head hurt. He told me how bad it had hurt all day at school, but how he was afraid to tell his teacher. Poor little guy. He was pretty warm, he was shaking and was really upset. So I put on my best comforting mommy hat and got his blankies, a drink, and turned on a movie. I just sat with him, and it hurt to see him feel so bad. Drew is not usually one who complains about pain or discomfort, so I knew he had to feel bad.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Ok, first of all I HAVE to post this photo of a TARANTULLA!!!! We saw it up in Farmington canyon-the place were we were supposed to camp...that is until we saw this dude, also the one-lane-fall-to-your-death-road up to the campground sealed the deal-no Farmington Canyon!

The next morning we went on a walk and took these photos. These are some of my favorite photos I've ever taken, I love the light coming through the trees...beautiful!

This past weekend we took our trailer out for its inaugural Stevens Family camping trip. We headed up to a beautiful campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was gorgeous! We got up there Thursday night around 7-ish and TJ and I were just stunned by the colors of the leaves-it was spectacular!! After going through the campground to find the "perfect" spot, we set up camp and went on a walk around, while the boys played on their bikes.

My MIL and cute sister-in-law Janelle, along with my adorable niece Emalee, came up to spend the day with us. We started with a yummy breakfast of tasty's donuts (thanks nelle!!), eggs and O.J. Then we went up to a hike to donut falls..and NO we didn't plan on the similarity between our breakfast and our hike. It was a fun hike, it wasn't too hot and I got some fun pictures too ;)

I took these cute pics of the boys. I love their cute personalities!! They really loved the hike. Drew was pretty much always in the front and Cam was always trying to get people to hold him...he's just a little guy though and it was kind of a long hike!

That night, we had a simple dinner and then roasted marshmallows over the fire. The boys weren't to keen on the smores, but they did LOVE roasted marshallows and the cookies plain. The would NOT eat them together...so funny! I love this photo of Drew-it's his crazy-cross-eyed-silly boy look.

While we were sitting around the fire, I snapped some photos of the boys, and am PRETTY SURE I'll be hangin' these on my walls! I LOVE these!!

I didn't bother to "photoshop" out the marshmallow and chocolate stuck to his little face, I thought it added to the picture!

Ok, you've probably noticed by now, that I've used a lot of textures and kind of fun, funky processing on these photos. I've been experimenting and really like how these all turned out!

When we put the boys to bed, I took these cute photos of TJ reading to the boys. They both love stories and are usually mesmorized by them.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Wednesday was our last "real" day in the park. We went to Old Faithful, then to Mammoth hot springs. After my dad and I stole away to take some photos.

First, we went to Old Faithful, we were there early enough that we got great seats to watch the show. Afterwards, we took a 2 mile walk to see more geysers and some pools. I got some ok photos of the other geysers, but my dads are SO much better, so go and check here to see what I mean.

Here's my shot of Old Faithful:

My kids LOVED playing with their poppa. He was always willing to do whatever they asked him to do. It was so cute! We put a leash on Cam while we were on the walk because of all of the hot pots, geysers, and mud pots. It was a fun toy for them!

This was one of the photos, that I had all framed ready to shoot, and my dad told me to move to get a better photo. I really learned a lot from him on this trip, and hope I can continually learn from him.

One of the gorgeous pools on our walk.

After we went to Old Faithful, we stopped for lunch at a cute little picnic spot by a stream. The boys had fun exploring and running around. After lunch we headed to Mammoth Hot Springs. It's really sad, actually. When we used to come to Yellowstone, when I was younger, Mammoth Hot Springs had much more water coming out of it, now it's almost dry.

Here are some fun photos I took while we were at Mammoth Hot Springs.

I love these photos of TJ and Cam. They were always two peas in a pod, it melted my little heart.

After Mammoth, my Dad and I took off together to get some more photos. He took me to some of his favorite spots. I loved the patterns of the grass in this meandering stream. I like the color photo better, but decided to post both.

We drove to this valley to practice taking photos of landscape shots and my dad showed me some cool things. I have a polarizing filter, but didn't realize I'd been using it wrong until my dad showed me what it could do. The first photo of the next three is without the filter, see how the sky is to light, and doesn't have very much color? Well, the polarizer fixed that...doesn't the sky look so much better in the other two photos?

I'm likely to get a comment about the processing in this next photo. I actually really like it! I think it has a lazy days of summers kind of a look.

This photo, is one of my favorite ones of the trip. This photo was a product of my dad suggesting different vantage points.

Day 5:

Today was the day that we drove from Yellowstone down to Jackson Hole. We stopped at this waterfall before we left the park. Earlier in the trip, my dad bought Drew some disposable cameras. You can see in this photo how proud of himself and his cute little camera. I love Cam's face...huh?!?

Our lil' family.....awwww.

One of the funny things we learned about Cam on this trip is that he's kind of a squirrel. We had this big bag of trail mix throughout the whole trip, and whenever we'd give Cam a handful, he'd start wining for more. For the first few days, we just thought he was really hungry and wolfing down the trail mix as fast as he could. On the way to Jackson, I found out what he was really doing....

Awww, sweet little boy. Seriously, look at those lashes!!

That night we went to Bar J, a tradition we had as a family while growing up. The boys were not quite as enthralled as I'd hoped. TJ and I and my parents laughed our selves silly, the food was so good, and overall it was such an enjoyable night. I'm really glad we were able to go.

Day 6:

This was the last day with my family, and we had a great time taking photos, shopping in downtown Jackson, and hanging out together.

First, my dad and I woke up early, early to go take some photos. We went to Oxbow Bend, and I got THIS shot....woah. I LOVE it!! My dad has driven through the Grand Teton National Park, several times and has never seen the water this still. We really lucked out.

After taking pictures at Oxbow Bend, we drove to a place my dad usually sees moose. We hiked back for a little bit, and unfortunately didn't see any wildlife. I did see this gorgeous feather, with dew all over it, and in the morning light it looked like it was covered in teeny tiny diamonds. The best part though, was as we were driving home, my dad thought to put the feather in the still water. I WISHED we would have thought of it while we were back there, it would have been such an amazing photo...

While my Dad and I were out shooting, TJ went on a white water rafting trip. He had a great time, and I wish I could of seen him have so much fun. After we all got back from our morning activities, we went to lunch at the Merry Piglets, a fun mexican restaurant in Downtown Jackson. After lunch, we walked around and enjoyed Jackson. My dad started to feel sick and then a freak rainstorm came up, so we went back to the campground. I got some cute pictures of the boys playing at the playground. It was a great last day. I'm so glad we were able to go on this trip with my parents, it was so much fun.

Ok, I LOVE this photo-isn't that caterpillar amazin?! My dad let me borrow is macro lens. I really want this lens for my own one day!

My Little Monkey's

Smiley, Chumples and Eyebrows

Drew

My big second grader! Drew LOVES soccer, riding bikes and scooters, playing with his brother Cam and friends and watching movies. He works so hard on his cello and is becoming an excellent reader. He's so helpful around the house. We love our Drew!

Cam

Cam is almost 5! He is my creative, fun-loving, sweetheart. Cam loves anything creative-crafts, coloring, puzzles. He loves to play with his older brother Drew and with friends. He started violin lessons this year and is doing fantastic. He's such a handsome boy, with amazing blue eyes. We love our Cam!

Eli

My almost 1 year old! He is our crazy, silly, funny and random little boy. We sure love him!